Ireland's first apearance on the international exhibitionary stage at the 1939 New York World's Fair saw Michael Scott deliver the ultra-modern Irish Pavilion, complete with externally mounted sculpture of 'Mother Éire' and type by Eric Gill

Ireland is in a reflective mood these days. With the island nation on the edge of Europe facing up to the reality of a severely damaged economy and a decimated construction industry, nostalgia is doing what it’s wont to do. A recently published book on how the country, back in its fledgling days, used the language of modernism in its project of nation-building and an exhibition currently running at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on the development of modernity in Ireland both contribute to a re-engagement with an internationally under-appreciated strand of Irish architecture that sought to posit the state as a modern and democratic society. The grass is sometimes greener, even on the Emerald Isle.